Topic: Media Research Center
When it became public that new standards in Florida for teaching black history involved teaching that slaves "developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” the Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense Brigade knew it was time for assemble once again.Alex Christy complained in a July 20 post:
Florida has come out with their new curriculum guidelines for African-American history and MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera invited Vanderbilt Prof. Michael Eric Dyson on to her Thursday show to talk about how they allegedly are comparable to teaching that there were good things about the Holocaust.
Before introducing Dyson, Cabrera cited the two most controversial aspects of the new standards, “the new standards say students should learn that enslaved people developed skills that, quote, ‘could be applied for their personal benefit.’ And that during lessons about mob violence against black residents, teachers should include “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.’”
Christy served up a kneejerk defense of that talking point:
It would not be totally unreasonable to look at the part that related to skill acquisition and say that Florida is making it seem as if slavery had a redeeming quality, which would be a mistake on the state’s part, but a more charitable explanation would be that the state is pointing out that slaves performed various tasks, such as tailoring or blacksmithing in addition to manual agricultural labor, that were used after emancipation.
Intern Ana Schau similarly grumbled in a post the same day:
Thursday’s CNN This Morning featured a segment where hosts Abby Phillip and Phil Mattingly expressed how appalled they were at Florida’s new standards for education in black history. Joined by CNN national correspondent Athena Jones, they spoke about how these “inaccurate” and “ahistorical” changes would disable teachers from teaching “the proper history,” and how they were “very disturbing when it comes to actually teaching accurate history in the schools.”
[...]
It is just a fact that many of the skills, especially agricultural skills, that these people acquired while working on plantations probably benefitted them immensely when they gained emancipation and were able to work their own land and earn money for themselves.
Schau offered no evidence to back up her claim; perhaps she felt she didn't need to since she declared to be "just a fact." She continued to insist that the standards were being misrepresented (bolding in original):
Jones then continued to complain about another change, which was the requirement for teachers to teach about “acts of violence perpetrated by African Americans” during various historical massacres and riots that targeted black people.
When pointing this out, she omitted the two words, “against and” included in the Academic Standards, which required education on “acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans.” Seems like an important thing to note, since this just entailed equal and honest instruction about all the acts of violence performed in these massacres, regardless of the race of those who committed them.
This was one detail that Jones clearly didn’t know about, since she complained that “these standards say you have to talk about acts of violence perpetrated by blacks,” as though that was all they said.
Again, no evidence was offered that crimes committed by blacks were "equal and honest" to those commited against them.
When Vice President Kamala Harris criticized the new standard, there were more complaints. Alex Christ whined in a July 22 post that there are many more references to slavery in the standards and not all them treat it positively:
Washington Post contributor Gary Abernathy and associate editor Jonathan Capehart joined PBS NewsHour’s Geoff Bennett to recap the week that was by not only excluding any mention of the House hearing on IRS whistleblowers alleging improper interference in the Hunter Biden investigation, but finding consensus that Vice President Harris is correct to attack Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s new history standards.
Bennett put the ball on the tee for Abernathy by noting “I want to raise the trip that the vice president, Kamala Harris, made to Florida today. It was a last-minute trip, and she was tackling changes to the state's education standards that appear to play down the horrors of slavery.”
Specifically, “The Florida Board of Education voted this week to approve revised Black history curriculum that includes instruction how slaves actually benefited from slavery because they learned some skills.”
In Florida’s new guidelines, there are 191 references to “slave,” “slaves,” or “slavery,” and the media is hyper-focused on only one of them. Nevertheless, Abernathy replied, “Yeah, it's ridiculous. I don't know what the fear is of teaching Black history, of teaching the horrors of slavery, of teaching what a horrible chapter in our history was. There's nothing to be afraid of with that teaching. It's — you know what? We’ve downplayed it too much in the past.”
Kevin Tober launched a major rantfest over Harris' criticism:
Late last week, Vice President Kamala Harris told one of the most heinous lies the Biden regime has ever uttered, which is quite the accomplishment considering this regime has zero regard for the truth as long as it gets in the way of the left's agenda to bring the United States to its knees. It was so important to Harris that she got on a plane to Jacksonville Florida to maliciously spread the foul claim that Florida is teaching that slavery had some good aspects and had many benefits to those enslaved. This is obviously a flat-out lie and during Sunday's edition of State of the Union on CNN, senior political commentator Scott Jennings had enough of the propaganda and called it out.
After the other panelists simply regurgitated the lies about Florida's new educational curriculum, Jennings jumped in to express his outrage at the irresponsible statements from the Vice President "It’s amazing to me that how little Kamala Harris has to do that she can read something on Twitter one day and be on an airplane the next to make something literally out of nothing," Jennings exclaimed.
"This is a completely made-up deal. I looked at the standards, I even looked at an analysis of the standards, in every instance where the word slavery or slave was used. I even read the statement of the African American scholars that wrote the standards. Not Ron DeSantis, but the scholars," he added.
And where did that "analysis of the standards" come from? The right-wing National Review, which can be relied upon to be biased in favor of Republicans like DeSantis. Tober described the National Review article as a "fantastic piece" but did not disclose its right-wing bias.
When a token Fox News liberal spoke out against the standards, Tim Graham huffed in a July 24 post that "Juan Williams took the Democratic hot takes to a new level, that Florida was teaching something like 'Jews picked up some skills in concentration camps' and 'engineers learned a lot" from 9/11.'" He touted that right-wing panelist "Katie Pavlich also noted the Florida standards talk a lot about teaching the horrors of slavery. But Williams could only try to suggest Ron DeSantis & Co. were like whitewashers of 9/11 and the Holocaust."
When an MSNBC "Morning Joe" panelist said that "we can't teach the correct history of this country, because it makes white kids uncomfortable," Mark Finkelstein retorted: "That is patently untrue. In Florida and in other states, kids of all races are taught about the evils of slavery. What DeSantis and others object to is kids being taught that slavery is the essence of the American story, and that every aspect of American life must be viewed through the lens of systemic racism that never ends." Finkelstein offered no proof that slaery is not part of "the American story" or that racism has completely ended.
Nicholas Fondacaro melted down when "The View" tacked the subject:
Disney and ABC’s The View was flooded with racism again on Monday, as the liberal ladies reacted to Florida adopting new standards for their black history courses and pushed misinformation peddled by Vice President Kamala Harris (D). During their unhinged and profanity-laced hot takes, racist co-host Sunny Hostin attacked ALL white people by insisting they “continue to reap the benefits” of slavery. Meanwhile, moderator Whoopi Goldberg suggested Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was trying to bring back slavery.
Largely ignoring (in one case scoffing) the fact the curriculum was written by multiple black scholars, Goldberg claimed they put it together without talking to any black people. “I feel like they didn't talk to any African Americans because we could have told them about the history, and nor have any -- anyone seemingly gone to the Smithsonian to find out anything,” she decried.
Yes, Fondacaro thinks talking about racism means you're racist (and he didn't disprove anything the co-hosts said), and he still thinks Hostin is a "racist" because he doesn't understand how metaphors work.
Cassandra DeVries complained that DeSantis was criticized for doubling down on those dubious standards:
CNN This Morning disparaged Presidential Candidate Ron DeSantis on Monday for commenting on a Florida curriculum update on slavery. Political commentator Errol Louis called DeSantis’s brief explanation a “disgraceful hash of history” and a “disgraceful pander.” Mario Parker, Bloomberg’s national politics team leader, alleged DeSantis was “disgraceful to defend slavery — to double down on it.” Despite the harsh backlash for his explanation, DeSantis never condoned or supported slavery.
CNN’s anger arose from Florida’s slavery curriculum summary. In a list of 191 points about the horrible truths of slavery, one read, “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
DeVries then botched a fact-check:
When DeSantis offered a list of people who proved the clause was historically accurate, Anchor Erica Hill claimed he manipulated the truth. “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative here, right?” Hill said.
“Don’t let the facts get in the way of a disgraceful pander in the case of Ron DeSantis,” Louis replied, after claiming 12 out of 14 of the people were listed as freedmen, not slaves, and thus could not serve as examples. He conveniently forgot the term freedmen referred to freed slaves, who did, in fact, fit the description DeSantis offered.
We're not sure what list DeVries is referring to, but two of the members of the workgroup that developed the standards released a list of 16 people whom they claimed were former slaves who allegedly learned skills in slavery they applied later in life. As one researcher documented, nine people on the list were born free and never enslaved, several were listed in the wrong industry, most did not use the skills learned in slavery later in life, and one was the (white) sister of George Washington.
Of course, Graham made sure to whine about all of this in his July 24 podcast.
